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IL ag director sees unprecedented instability

The director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture says the Trump administration’s actions of cutting and freezing appropriated funds are hurting the state’s leading industry.

Jerry Costello told a recent Congressional roundtable, “The instability that the Trump administration has caused in agriculture in literally 2 months, I’m not sure that I know of a time that we’ve experienced anything like this before,” he says.

Costello says farmers, and the people they feed, need the support of the USDA.  He says the now frozen Local Food Purchasing Agreement is a prime example.

“It’s taking monies that go to 176 producers.  The product is bought at market value and then those products go to 883 food insecure community sites.”  He says, “These foods are going to feed the people that are the most food insecure, the most vulnerable.”

He says even promised federal reimbursement funds to the state are not arriving as they should.

“We’ve actually gone to federal websites trying to pull reimbursements and the website will read error.”  He says, “You can’t get into the website.”

Costello says federal court rulings against the cuts are seemingly being ignored by the administration, and he says the uncertainty around numerous programs is frustrating.